Gameplay

Is God in control?  In a sense yes, but it is not a control like is commonly assumed.  It is not as though God has a game box controller that pilots us like a video game.  God is in control, but perhaps a better way to say it is that God is in command.  When tragedy comes and we scream and ask the question, does God see?  Isn’t He in control?  The common answer is, Yes - but this is a wholly inadequate and incomplete answer when facing tragedy. 

Our eyes need to go up in elevation a bit to see that we are asking the wrong question when we inquire who navigated and put us in this tragedy? That is like asking why does the trout take the fly?  Or why does kinetic energy happen?  Or why is the sky blue?  If we answer, "Why is the sky blue" with "because God is in control and that is what He wanted it to be".  Then we also have to answer the question "Why did this tragedy happen" with "because God controlled it and made it happen."  Which sounds like a true statement, but a completely inadequate one. 

It's like looking at the Grand Canyon and saying a river made it.  It is inadequate because it fails to involve nearly an infinite combination of choices, responses, actions, reactions and natural law.  We live in an existence that is an unimaginably complex assortment of factors that contribute to one effect or another.  The mixture of our own sin, the sin of others, entropy, evil, combined into a complex creation that results in beauty and suffering. 

In this existence, you have majestic and powerful African lions that are also covered in parasites and kill weak baby zebras.  Here you have fantastic mountains with their own microclimates and breathtaking awe-inspiring beauty.  And on those same mountains people freeze to death, fall down cliffsides or are attacked by bears.  Is God in control, well yes.  But to say as such suggests there is no other principle or actor in play and in reality, there are an infinite number of wills, actions, reactions, separations and collisions, chemistry, physics, etc. that all combine to make the broken beauty we experience. 

The question: is God in control, becomes an unreasonable question to ask and answer.  It is like God asking Job if he can control the Leviathan.  God is in essence telling Job, “Oh, so you think the lack of continuity you cannot get your head wrapped around, is the problem." "Something doesn't add up the way you want or expect, and you want an answer as to why the conclusion was not what you expected."  "You want me to explain the Leviathan?"  "You want me to spell it all out for you and show you the tidy rows and columns I have organized the universe to follow?"  "Sorry, it doesn't work like that."  "You are not going to put a hook in Leviathan’s jaw and drag him to market."  You are not going to tangle with him and get the upper hand.  You are not going to wrestle him into submission.  These ideas are fools’ errands.  Control over the sequence of events is not the issue.  The issue is Who is in command and has ultimate authority over everything including what went wrong. It is not who moved this chess piece to this space on the board.  It is Who is Commander and Creator of the board and pieces. And what is His intention to resolve all the errant elements?

There is an element of our existence (Leviathan) that is enormous in power and complexity and nothing to be trifled with.  Did God create it?  Yes.  Is it controllable? Not by humans, angels or anything else short of God himself.  However, it is not a control like a chauffeur drives a car.  It is more like God built the car.  It isn’t that God transacted the tragedy, but He did build and is sovereign over the reality in which the tragedy occurred.

The question we need to be asking is, "Is God in command?"  This perspective goes above the control question.  It admits as a presupposition that complexity exists, that "control" is a distraction.  The answer to the question, “Is God in command?”, is a resounding, echoing and clear "Yes!".  There may be millions of factors that contributed to an event gone wrong. It is less important who or what is responsible for it than to recognize Who is in command over it.

Who is in command is more valuable because when all goes wrong, we don’t need an expert driver or game player to expertly execute the navigation of events. Not a master chess player that knows how and when every move should be made. We need the One that designed and implemented the structure of the atom and the cosmos to tell us He’s got it. We need Someone to tell us that no matter what happens in this timeline we call life, He wins. Justice will be implemented. Loss will be restored. Death will be reversed, and tragedy will be reconciled. And it will be done perfectly, without blemish.

This… God promises. In fact, His command over all is demonstrated in the resurrection of Christ. There was a historic train wreck commonly called Passion Week. Tragedy undeniably prevailed. Betrayal, denial, injustice, cowardice, arrogance; you name it, it was packed into that tragedy.  But it didn’t end there. And life did not stay trapped in the tragedy. Because the glory and command of God was made irrevocably clear when Christ walked out of the tomb. Death, tragedy, all broken attempts at gameplay control are subservient to the command of God. All the movements and controls that make up the Leviathan become irrelevant. Who did what to whom no longer matters because the Commander took charge and in His amazing mercy overruled broken reality.  Demonstrating His plan of restoration of all that was, is and will be broken so that we can know, love and rest in His presence. The One in command has made it certain and proved it by raising Christ on the third day. Who did what to whom and why? Who was in control? I don’t care.  I know Who is in command.